Gesturing Toward Reality: David Foster Wallace and Philosophy

✍ Scribed by Robert K. Bolger; Scott Korb (editors)

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2014
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 297
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Asked in 2006 about the philosophical nature of his fiction, the late American writer David Foster Wallace replied, "If some people read my fiction and see it as fundamentally about philosophical ideas, what it probably means is that these are pieces where the characters are not as alive and interesting as I meant them to be."
Gesturing Toward Reality looks into this quality of Wallace's work-when the writer dons the philosopher's cap-and sees something else. With essays offering a careful perusal of Wallace's extensive and heavily annotated self-help library, re-considerations of Wittgenstein's influence on his fiction, and serious explorations into the moral and spiritual landscape where Wallace lived and wrote, this collection offers a perspective on Wallace that even he was not always ready to see. Since so much has been said in specifically literary circles about Wallace's philosophical acumen, it seems natural to have those with an interest in both philosophy and Wallace's writing address how these two areas come together.

✦ Table of Contents

Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Love, and What You Will, Do: An Introduction
Chapter 1 How We Ought To Do Things with Words1
The players, the stage
Methodological Descriptivism
Philosophical Descriptivism
Stop and think about how you’re saying what you’re saying
Chapter 2 The Subsurface Unity of All Things, or David Foster Wallace’s Free Will1
I
II
III
Chapter 3 A Less “Bullshitty” Way To Live: The Pragmatic Spirituality of David Foster Wallace
Stage setting: Two parables one point
The epistemic effects of a life curved inward
Overcoming epistemic obstacles: Or, how to care about the stranger
Seeing and the sacred
The fish prequel
Chapter 4 This Is Water and Religious Self-Deception
Of water and Eskimos
Self-deception
Problematic psychological processes
Religious self-deception
What should we do?
Conclusion
Chapter 5 Inside David Foster Wallace’s Head: Attention, Loneliness, Suicide, and the Other Side of Boredom
Chapter 6 The Lobster Considered
Moral status explained
A little argument
Animals and the moral landscape
A cautionary note
Sentience: Pain and suffering17
What exactly is pain?25
The mechanics of pain
Objections
Conclusion
Chapter 7 The Terrible Master: David Foster Wallace and the Suffering of Consciousness (with guest Arthur Schopenhauer)
The guest
The will
Chapter 8 Philosophy, Self-Help, and the Death of David Wallace1
“A troubled little soldier”
Lifeline
Chapter 9 Untrendy Problems: The Pale King’s Philosophical Inspirations
Chapter 10 The Formative Years: David Foster Wallace’s Philosophical Influences and The Broom of the System
The family background
The American Way
Like father like son
Chapter 11 Beyond Philosophy: David Foster Wallace on Literature, Wittgenstein, and the Dangers of Theorizing*
On Wallace and narrative philosophy
On Lobsters, Omelas, and battling boredom
On Wittgenstein and the danger of theorizing
On preaching, choosing, and knowing one’s way about language
Chapter 12 Good Faith and Sincerity: Sartrean Virtues of Self-Becoming in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest1
Introduction
Sincerity: A Sartrean, existentialist ideal
Good faith and sincerity in Infinite Jest
Conclusion
Chapter 13 Theories of Everything and More: Infinity is Not the End
Metaphysics is dead. Long live metaphysics!
Doomsday argument: The world doesn’t exist
Objective phenomenology: Wallace’s moral meta-fiction
Wallace’s big TOE
Good and bad infinity: Morning Boys! How’s the world?
Chapter 14 Does Language Fail Us? Wallace’s Struggle with Solipsism
A solipsism of sorts
Missing the Wittgensteinian point
Wallace’s challenge to solipsism
Wallace, solipsism, and “Good Old Neon”
Wallace’s skepticism about moral language
True empathy in Wallace’s “Good Old Neon”
Index